Mar 08 2016
-
Apr 02 2016
Reflections, Flowers and Forests

Reflections, Flowers and Forests

Presented by Buenaventura Art Association at Buenaventura Gallery

Plein-air painter’s Ventura show explores nature

“Reflections, Flowers and Forests relate to some of my favorite subjects,” Mark Hafeman said about the title of his March 8-April 2 solo exhibition at the Buenaventura Gallery in downtown Ventura.

“This show is focused on the beauty of nature as seen by my watercolors of flowers and my plein-air landscape scenes of mountains, rivers and ponds,” he said. “I am influenced by the Impressionists in that I like to paint light effects on water, trees and mountains. My colors are bold, like the Fauvists. I offer contemporary plein-air landscape paintings with Hudson Bay sensibilities to the magic and wonder of nature.”

Hafeman, who will have nearly two dozen recent paintings on display, will attend an opening reception 5-7 p.m. March 12. Creating art is part of his genetic makeup, he said. “My mother and grandmother were artists. I had a brush in my hand at 3 years of age and took instruction from my mother, who was a portrait artist.”

But Hafeman also broke with the family tradition, preferring outdoors to studio work and devising his own mixed-media method: sketching with a fountain pen on a gesso-treated board, then using acrylics for underpainting and completing the paintings in oils.

“The most challenging part of this process is getting the acrylic underpainting to dry when it is cold and rainy during the winter,” he said. “I sometimes have to go to the car and turn on the heater at high blast and hold the painting toward the vents in order to get the acrylic to dry. This gets acrylic paint on my steering wheel.

“I like the acrylic underlay because it allows me to place oil on top of it. Sometimes the oil paint is thin and bits of the underlay shine through, such as when I am painting water, and other times the oil paint is thick and covers up the underlay.”

Hafeman lives in Oxnard and is active in the Buenaventura Art Association. He has one of the studios at Harbor Village Gallery and serves on the association board of directors as its treasurer. But he also ranges far in search of plein-air subjects and belongs to the California Art Club, Plein Air Artists Colorado and Plein Air Painters of New Mexico. Hafeman also founded the group TULARIVA — Tuesday Los Angeles River Art — where artists meet weekly to paint a section or tributary of the Los Angeles River. The group’s works have been in numerous Los Angeles shows and galleries.

Hafeman said his watercolor flowers are done on paper using special liquid watercolors that “have a vibrancy of color that allows for greater color vibration between complementary colors” and framed in UV protective glass for better longevity.

His works in Reflections, Flowers and Forests range from 12 by 16 inches up to 16 by 20. Most watercolors in the show are 12 by 16 inches, with matting 20 by 24 when framed.

He has a YouTube channel under the pseudonym “Marc Waveman” with many videos of plein-air art and a YouTube video entitled "U can paint anything" at m.youtube.com/watch?v=N1CEttcA6dY. Still images of some of his paintings can be found at divinelightimages.net and markhafeman.com.

Dates & Times

2016/03/08 - 2016/04/02

Location Info

Buenaventura Gallery

432 N. Ventura Ave., Ventura, CA 93001